As digital musicianship grows, it’s critical to have places like Robotspeak. This small, basement-level music shop on San Francisco’s lower Haight is a brilliant music tech boutique by day. On regular evenings, it becomes a venue, packing in fans of genre-bending electronica. Walk off the street, and you feel like you’re in someone’s basement — someone with lots of toys and a great affection for throwing great musical parties.

I got to play Robotspeak last month on a program with some terrific players: the legendary Daedalus, armed with the prototype device that inspired the Monome, the fabulous Chachi Jones, and the sonic explorations of acoustic ensemble Pineresin. Thanks to the power of video, we can share a little bit of that performance with you, complete with discussion of the tools. Tools are not incidental, either: it’s great to see the range of ways people approach exploring sound and performance, even in this small cross-sampling of artists.

My favorite video it the outtakes, but I’ll resist the temptation to start with that — suffice to say, yes, all of us laptopists face the same problems. Be sure to look to the end for that one.

I had an incredibly great time — there’s nothing like being in a really supportive venue, one that values musicians taking some real risks. Now, the videos:

May was a Maker Faire edition; I personally obliged by trying some sets that were in beta. The beautiful documentation was shot and edited by Andrew Cavette.

Peter Kirn

Ed.: That name’s familiar. Not sure why. Y’all have rightfully bugged me to put more of my actual stuff so you know what my own work sounds like, so I’ll swallow my shyness and put this first.

Pineresin

Chachi Jones

Daedelus

Outtakes

More Robotspeak

For more of this series, here’s the season opener:

Robotspeak’s free concert and artist Q&A series “Sessions” kicked off 2007 with a thunderous robotic belch on 01/31/07. You’ve got 0mnis0und’s Casio SK1-infused Ableton Live session with live drumming. Snareface’s MPC rocking, beer-spilling, cell phone-ignoring bleep funk. Then Puzzle’s relentless hardcore drum & bass outfitted with wah-pedals and repeater delays. Behind it all Doolittle puts a giant-breasted insect woman on a pane of glass and a psychotic weepy-eyed robot on the wall. To hear the whole show, look for Robotspeak’s audio-only podcast on iTunes.

Robotspeak Sessions 3.5 “Maker Faire” Edition, on the Robotspeak blog/magazine

Maker Faire this weekend had plenty to offer fans of DIY musical gear, from Theremin karaoke performances to wild, home-built instruments from independent DIYers and academics. I spent most of the weekend tied to my booth, making music by scanning barcodes, manipulating a simple infrared sensor and touch sensor, and running live interactive visuals in Jitter. (The last turned out to be a huge hit with babies and their parents. Seriously.) But I did get out a bit; my impressions are documented on Flickr:

Maker Faire 2007 Flickr Photoset

If you were there and have some images of your own, or have seen a gallery you especially like, send it our way!

Hello, coming to you live from San Mateo and the Maker Faire hosted by Make Magazine. If you stopped by the CDM booth today, I hope you stick around a while. This site, for musicians, DJs, composers, and soundmakers, covers the audible side. Create Digital Motion covers VJing and live and interactive visuals (for an audience we like to call visualists). We cover store-bought hardware and software as well as DIY, and love having everyone from beginners to advanced readers around.

Here are some links to more information on some of what I was showing:

Sensors and MIDI: Working with sensors and physical inputs is what some term “physical computing.” We’ve covered lots of physical computing projects here on CDMusic.

I wrote up an introduction to MIDI for Make 07 which would be a good place to start if you’re relatively new to MIDI.

The MIDI sock monkey and infrared and touch sensors are powered by Lady Ada’s MIDIsense, as introduced here:
Sensors-to-MIDI with the MIDIsense Board. See also the Arduino board, which we’ve covered mostly on the motion side.

Barcode scanner to music converter, powered by Processing, a Java-based development language that makes programming friendly for artists. Check out the official Processing site, Processing Blogs aggregator, and Processing coverage on our sister site, Create Digital Motion.

Live visuals: The live video-processing “mirror” via the MacBook was built in Max/MSP/Jitter. Check out our ongoing Jitter coverage on CDMotion. Nope, no “source code” / source patch available yet — it’s a bit too messy, the reason you don’t see more open-sourced Max patches!

And totally off-subject: The keyboard I was using is a ReMOTE 37SL from Novation. Nothing to do with Maker or Maker Faire but very handy to have around … and well worthy of combining with other DIY hardware.

I’m in Meatspace largely at the moment, with a weekend packed with events at the Maker Faire. There are plenty of DIY music and motion projects here, and they’ll all be within spitting distance of my booth. Add to that performance events Friday and Saturday, and it’s looking like a great weekend. If you’re not in the Bay Area (which, yes, 99% of you aren’t), expect to see the virtual translation of all this meaty goodness soon. Some of these projects are also suggesting some how-to tutorials, so I’ll be working on that, as well. If you are here, note that the Friday and Saturday night events have no cover, a trend I hope to continue whenever CDM World Tour happens.

Here’s the quick summary of events:

Friday Night: Robotspeak 8 PM – 11 PM, 589.5 Haight Street at Steiner, music/visual lineup with discussion (flyer after the jump)

Saturday Night: CDM + Make team up for the Chips + Music + Fish party
Chips + Music + Fish details @ Makezine.com
Confirmed lineup: Pineresin, Starpause, Chachi Jones, Steve&Derek, Zaxxon Spacecase, Barney the Theremin Wizard, myself, and live visuals!

(The as-always-fantastic design comes to us by way of our graphic maker Nat.)

All weekend long, Maker Faire!
Maker Faire page, San Mateo County Event Center

Real posts should pick up again once I return, so thanks for your patience.

If you are in the Bay Area, or coming into town for the awesomeness that is the Maker Faire, we would love to invite you to the party.

What: Chips + Fish + Music Party, the Maker Faire “after party”
Brought to you by: MAKE:Magazine and CDM
Who: Anyone making their own music with chips (little chips, big chips, Intel Core Duo chips), or anyone who loves to eat chips and/or fish. Makers from the Faire, locals, visitors all welcome.
When: Saturday, May 19. 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm: featured music sets. 9:30 pm – whenever: hang, DIY musical show-and-tell, eat fish and/or chips.
Where: Edinburgh Castle Pub, 950 Geary St. San Francisco, CA. 415-885-4074. (5pm – 2 am; map.)
Why: Because we love DIY music, whether it’s customized hardware, self-made software, or just lovingly-programmed commercial gear and apps.

And there’s more: I’m looking for a couple of additional featured sets, lots more partygoers, and also have a music lineup to share Friday night at Robotspeak (more performances than party there):

Featured sets and show-and-tells wanted: We still have a couple of slots left for short (20-30 minute) featured sets in the featured block, and I’d like to open that to CDMers and Maker Faire participants. If you have a set you’d like to share, and you’re an international celebrity or an obscure loner, drop me a line. (peter AT createdigitalmusic *dot* com.)

If you have a small DIY project you’d like to show and tell and, for instance, it wasn’t quite ready for the Maker Faire, bring it along. Especially handy: mobile devices, like your latest Nintendo DS / Game Boy / GP2X / Palm tracker set. We’ll be sharing stuff during the 9:30 hang. There’s also live music at the space, some of which sounds great, so I expect some people will go listen to that.

If you like fish and chips, we’ll have a pre-order form ready to make sure it’s there when you get there. I’m told they’re hooked up with the best fish & chips supplier in San Francisco.

I’ll be sure to post a reminder and details next week closer to the event, including travel instructions if you’re in San Mateo for Maker Faire like me.

Plus a Friday night Robotspeak party: Robotspeak has put together a really amazing lineup that I’m thrilled to be part of, with short music sets and artist Q&A. In the lineup, aside from me: Pineresin (Dielectric), Chachi Jones, and Daedalus (Plug Research / Ninja Tune). They’ve created a beautiful poster, too, which implies that while Daedalus is on Ninja Tune, I’m on … Mac World. (I’m guessing that’s because of my occasional contributions to Macworld Magazine. Though I may have to call up Chris Breen and see if he wants to start a Macworld record label.) Anyway, don’t be phased by that — if you get to stop by, the event is Friday at 589.5 Haight Street, at Steiner, at Robotspeak. I say that like I have any idea where that is. Happily, Google Maps knows (and now even has BART stops). That flyer really is nice:

Next week, all week I’ll be in the Bay Area, California for Maker Faire, the Burning Man meets Science Fair meets World Expo meets Happening event hosted by our friends at Make Magazine. With so much going on, here’s a look at some of the digital music-specific events and workbenches featured this year (as I did last year). And yes, I’ll be on-hand personally showing alternative instruments, performing, and co-hosting/playing two parties (stay tuned here for the latest):

Performances: The Crank Ensemble will perform on crank-operated DIY musical instruments. Vocal virtuoso Kid Beyond will be looping away with Ableton. Loop.pooL will be doing … well, looping of some kind, I gather. Even the knitting circle will have a DJ.

The highlight for me, though, is Mark G, who as reported previously will infringe upon copyrights using sewing thimbles and host a battle of cassette jockeys.

Workbenches: For lovers of creating your own music technology, the real action will be at the workbenches, six-foot tables where we’ll have projects of various types and get to chat with visitors. There’s brilliant stuff of all kinds, but specific to music DIYers:

1. Monome: First shown off at last year’s Maker Faire, our Monome friends are back to demonstrate the much larger 100h, the sequel to last year’s hit open source hardware pad controller for music and multimedia. Workbench link; Monome on CDM.
2. Thereping: Using the Parallax ultrasonic PING sensor (which happens to be one of my favorite sensor inputs), the Thereping is a self-contained, largely touch-free instrument played by waving your hand. You can find source code and other goodies at the project website, or check out the workbench page.
3. OpenSoundControl-a-palooza: OpenSoundControl (OSC) is the net-savvy, modern protocol for connecting music and multimedia devices, as used by the Lemur, Make Controller Kit, and software like Max/MSP and Processing. Key OSC leader Adrian Freed will be on-hand to show off devices using the technology.
4. New Music Research: Stanford’s CCRMA will show “new sonic interactions” built in low-cost and open-source tools.
5. Studio in a Briefcase: MIT Media Lab researcher David Merrill has built a self-contained, Ubuntu and Pure data-powered PC-in-a-case called the AudioPint. Sound toys, joystick input, and audio I/O are all wrapped into a single, open-platform audio unit.
6. Combining DIY Music Software for Sound + Visuals: It’s Quartz Composer plus Processing plus Pd plus OSC, oh my! Our friend Steve Cooley is teaming up with Derek Scott to bridge the divide between different applications and different media, combining music and visuals interactively. See the workbench page for more.
7. VJ Kung Fu: Surya from VJKUNGFU.TV will have a single focal point for visualists with something called the Retinal Rumble.

Plus a how-to bench for using alternative inputs: If you stop by my own workbench, I’ll be demonstrating how to use alternative inputs (sensors-to-MIDI, Wii controllers, and a barcode scanner) for music. I decided that, with so many nifty tech projects happening, I’d keep it simple and focus on projects you can build yourself. I’m also putting together an interactive workshop on this stuff for CDM that should grow over time, so whether you’re at Maker Faire or not, you’ll definitely be able to see what I’m working on. See my (bare-bones, at the moment) project page.

And there’s more …

Resources for DIY music: The Create USB sensor-to-USB board and Make Controller Kit (of course) will both have their own workbenches; we’ve featured these previously as ways of interfacing with sensors. (I’ll focus on the MIDIsense and Arduino.) Applicable to music, as well, are a DIY Wii-style game controller and open-source USB hardware maker portal. For wireless lovers, there’s Tom Igoe with his XBee hardware.

And more musical instruments: Self-playing MIDI band (with drum kit, no less), multitouch music devices, motorcycle musical instruments, helmets with cameras and musical sensor-driven shoes, and a “space age” MIDI guitar-ish controller.

This means you: If any of the projects I’ve just described are your projects, do get in touch. And since we’ll be tied up at our respective workbenches, hopefully we’ll run into each other at the Maker Day festivities Thursday hosted by Make, at setup on Friday, or at the parties I’m participating in / co-hosting Friday and Saturday night (more on that soon). Or just introduce yourself in comments here.

I need help! If you’re planning on attending, I desperately need folks to take photos, videos, and write up notes of everything music= and motion-related, since I’ll be at my bench. Do get in touch, and of course we’ll have some Flickr and video groups up and running, as well.

Cassette-tape DJ battles are just one of TradeMark G.’s retro, regressive, subversive musical creations. He also likes to put on glasses, a white lab coat, and interactive sewing thimble gloves, in order to produce illegal, copyright-crushing musical performances.

Many of the techno-gimmicks seen here on CDM are one-offs and prototypes. The Evolution Control Committee, by contrast, has been producing “illegal art”, often with the aid of technology, for some 20 years. They’ve been “culture jamming”, dropping Napster bombs (remember Napster?), infamously attracting the ire of CBS, and dressing up as giant pairs of trousers and cans of Parmesan cheese ever since. (I’m especially fond of the giant pants costumes.)

For the last few years, they’ve been perfecting the Thimbletron, a glove with sewing thimbles attached to a hacked M-Audio Oxygen8. (I always knew those Oxygen keyboards would be good for something.) The interface gives them newly-expanded powers of sample triggering. Happily, unlike Wired Magazine, they don’t overuse the term “mash-ups” to describe what they’re doing. Try, instead, “plagiarhythm” or “plunderphonics”: “In the world of The ECC’s music, Public Enemy duke it out with Herb Alpert while TV news anchor Dan Rather is the new frontman for AC/DC.”

Thimbletronic Energy Technology Page (video link at the top)

TradeMark will be performing with the Thimbletron at the Maker Faire, as well as running the cassette tape DJ battle we saw earlier:

Call for Cassette Jockeys @ Maker Faire, Cassette Tech Roundup

CDM (meaning me) will be at Maker Faire all week, sending as much coverage and causing as much havoc as possible. I’m hoping Dan Rather shows up.

More glove music controllers:

Controlling Music with DIY Interactive Gloves